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Innovation Drives SAE 2006 World Congress in Positive Direction

WARRENDALE, Pa., April 11, 2006 - Early data from the SAE 2006 World Congress indicate that the event will live up to its nickname “the Comeback Congress.”

New to the SAE 2006 World Congress was the OEM/Supplier Park, which featured the participation of host company BMW, along with Ford, GM, DaimlerChrysler and Toyota. In the history of the SAE World Congress, there were never more than three OEMs exhibiting at any one time.

The unprecedented OEM participation in turn sparked more suppliers to exhibit. In addition to long-time supporters such as Aisin, AVL and FEV, companies such as Lear, Behr and Continental chose to be part of the OEM/Supplier Park.

The four-day SAE World Congress completed last week was held at Cobo Center in Detroit and attracted a total of 35,114 registered attendees from 47 nations; U.S. attendees represented 49 states (all but Hawaii). Nearly one in five attendees (18%) this year came from the Corporate Engineering Management demographic and 40% of total SAE 2006 World Congress attendance was drawn from OEMs and Tier-One Suppliers. Attendance for last year’s SAE World Congress, which celebrated the Society’s centennial, was 35,908.

“The success of this year’s SAE World Congress was critical to our future,” David L. Amati, Director of Global Automotive Business, said. “Last year, there was a lot of Centennial celebration surrounding the SAE World Congress, and that certainly pushed the event in a positive direction; the challenge this year, then, would be to maintain that momentum – and I am very happy to report that we’ve accomplished that.”

In addition to positive gains on the exhibit floor, a host of well-known automotive executives from industry, government and academia took part in the event which was chaired by Prof. Dr. Burkhard Goeschel of BMW AG.

The event was capped by its “high-energy Thursday” highlights when Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy, Samuel Bodman addressed the SAE World Congress and the former U.S. Energy Secretary, Spence Abraham, keynoted the SAE World Congress’ grand finale at its sold-out banquet.

Amati says indicators for the SAE 2007 World Congress, to be hosted by Toyota, already are tracking ahead of 2006’s as nearly two-thirds (64%) of available exhibit space was sold as of last week. He noted that 54% of exhibit space was sold as of this time last year.